I have signed up to do sound for a production of NEXT TO NORMAL in a few months, and the director wants to put the band backstage. I have done sound for community theatre musicals for many years, but hiding the band away completely is a first for me. The music is also more rock-and-roll than I'm used to having to deal with in this context.
Digital Piano
Guitar (both clean and rock distortion needed)
Bass (not sure yet if electric or upright)
Violin (with pickup)
Cello (with pickup)
Drums (either real or a Roland TD9-KX2 e-kit)
I don't want to have monitor speakers/wedges for the band at all if I can help it. The violin and cello with have pickups, as will the bass if upright. Everything else will be DI'd direct to the mixer (an X32) which will be backstage also, with me mixing remotely with laptop, X32-Edit and a BCF2000 control surface (and/or the iPad app if I'm feeling brave) because the house doesn't have a snake (it's a brand new theatre conversion which is only half built out, for reasons I won't go into) and also because the booth is small and the lighting console takes up half of it, so an X32 would be a tight squeeze.
I want to set up a "poor man's IEM system" (as I have seen it referred to in other threads on this forum) with a 6-channel headphone amp (either the ART or Alesis unit) and headphones either provided by us, or the musicians' own if they prefer. The cabling will be a bit messy, but it's only six people and they'll be fairly close together and close to the mixer, so I think it's tolerable. I'm guessing closed (or mostly closed) headphones will be essential. Is something cheap like a Sennheiser HD201/202 going to work, or are they not good enough, do you think? I don't think we'll have the budget for much more.
I'll use six bus outs on the X32 to drive the individual channels on the headphone amp, and the musicians can do their own mixes with the iPhone app if necessary. I figured I could also send an overall stereo mix to the headphone amp shared stereo input as well, in case they want to trade flexibility for stereo-ness, but perhaps that's not necessary. The blend of stereo-mix-vs-me can be done on the headphone amp knobs or just by varying the relative level of the individual mono mixes against the fixed stereo mix.
I am also considering giving the MD/piano a mic (probably a '58 on a boom), and mixing that into the band feeds also, so he can talk to them without it being heard in the house, but perhaps that's overkill? That can also go to the wedges on stage through which the actors will hear the band, so he can talk to them during rehearsals. There'll be a wireless handheld God Mic for the director and/or SM as well, which can be mixed into any of the above.
The six actors will be on lavalier wireless (Sennheiser EW172G3 and MKE2, forehead mounted). The theatre has a decent stereo pair, but I want to add one or two overhead centre fills, and maybe even experiment with LCR mixing.
Anyway, we're a few weeks from even confirming the MD (one of two, right now) let alone the rest of the band, so I know much of the practicality of this will depend on what the band (or at least, the MD) will accept. One of the candidates has played Broadway shows before, so presumably he's familiar with professional set-ups.
The question of real drums vs. the Roland kit is the other question. The brain only has basic stereo outs, but at least that saves mixer inputs (although I have plenty of those!) and again, not having to mic up a real drum kit will save on mic-ing and bleed problems, right? (I doubt any form of isolation will be practical)
Oh yes, and whether the guitarist should use pedals for his FX (and implicitly, no amp) or whether I do that in the board (it has a decent built-in guitar amp simulator).
Other things to consider... video feeds each way? Use old-skool CRT screens so there's no digital lag?
That's all I can think of right now...
I just don't want to shoot for something and for it to go horribly wrong and not have a Plan B, so any opinions, however relevant, on this would be most welcome!
Digital Piano
Guitar (both clean and rock distortion needed)
Bass (not sure yet if electric or upright)
Violin (with pickup)
Cello (with pickup)
Drums (either real or a Roland TD9-KX2 e-kit)
I don't want to have monitor speakers/wedges for the band at all if I can help it. The violin and cello with have pickups, as will the bass if upright. Everything else will be DI'd direct to the mixer (an X32) which will be backstage also, with me mixing remotely with laptop, X32-Edit and a BCF2000 control surface (and/or the iPad app if I'm feeling brave) because the house doesn't have a snake (it's a brand new theatre conversion which is only half built out, for reasons I won't go into) and also because the booth is small and the lighting console takes up half of it, so an X32 would be a tight squeeze.
I want to set up a "poor man's IEM system" (as I have seen it referred to in other threads on this forum) with a 6-channel headphone amp (either the ART or Alesis unit) and headphones either provided by us, or the musicians' own if they prefer. The cabling will be a bit messy, but it's only six people and they'll be fairly close together and close to the mixer, so I think it's tolerable. I'm guessing closed (or mostly closed) headphones will be essential. Is something cheap like a Sennheiser HD201/202 going to work, or are they not good enough, do you think? I don't think we'll have the budget for much more.
I'll use six bus outs on the X32 to drive the individual channels on the headphone amp, and the musicians can do their own mixes with the iPhone app if necessary. I figured I could also send an overall stereo mix to the headphone amp shared stereo input as well, in case they want to trade flexibility for stereo-ness, but perhaps that's not necessary. The blend of stereo-mix-vs-me can be done on the headphone amp knobs or just by varying the relative level of the individual mono mixes against the fixed stereo mix.
I am also considering giving the MD/piano a mic (probably a '58 on a boom), and mixing that into the band feeds also, so he can talk to them without it being heard in the house, but perhaps that's overkill? That can also go to the wedges on stage through which the actors will hear the band, so he can talk to them during rehearsals. There'll be a wireless handheld God Mic for the director and/or SM as well, which can be mixed into any of the above.
The six actors will be on lavalier wireless (Sennheiser EW172G3 and MKE2, forehead mounted). The theatre has a decent stereo pair, but I want to add one or two overhead centre fills, and maybe even experiment with LCR mixing.
Anyway, we're a few weeks from even confirming the MD (one of two, right now) let alone the rest of the band, so I know much of the practicality of this will depend on what the band (or at least, the MD) will accept. One of the candidates has played Broadway shows before, so presumably he's familiar with professional set-ups.
The question of real drums vs. the Roland kit is the other question. The brain only has basic stereo outs, but at least that saves mixer inputs (although I have plenty of those!) and again, not having to mic up a real drum kit will save on mic-ing and bleed problems, right? (I doubt any form of isolation will be practical)
Oh yes, and whether the guitarist should use pedals for his FX (and implicitly, no amp) or whether I do that in the board (it has a decent built-in guitar amp simulator).
Other things to consider... video feeds each way? Use old-skool CRT screens so there's no digital lag?
That's all I can think of right now...
I just don't want to shoot for something and for it to go horribly wrong and not have a Plan B, so any opinions, however relevant, on this would be most welcome!
